State Policy

March 26, 2015 -
This week marked the fifth anniversary of President Obama signing into law the Affordable Care Act, and a "People's Grand Jury" in North Carolina handed down a symbolic indictment of the state's Republican leaders for refusing to expand Medicaid to cover more uninsured low-income people as the law allows.

March 4, 2015 -
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in King v. Burwell, a case challenging the legality of subsidies for Affordable Care Act policies bought on the federal exchange. If the justices strike down the subsidies, residents of the South would be disproportionately affected.

February 27, 2015 -
The N.C. Home Builders Association has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting legislators' campaigns and employs a team of powerful lobbyists in Raleigh. What does it want in return?

February 20, 2015 -
While governors in the Southeast are pushing for offshore oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic, elected officials in other East Coast states are fighting the proposal, saying the potential cost is too great.

February 18, 2015 -
With state and federal policies taking a heavy financial toll on historically black colleges and universities, one public HBCU in South Carolina is facing the threat of closure -- and its supporters are fighting back with a federal race-discrimination lawsuit.

February 6, 2015 -
The grassroots movement that's led to the arrest of more than 1,000 people in nonviolent protests against North Carolina's regressive political direction is getting ready to kick off another year of action with a week of daily events followed by a mass march through the state capital.

February 6, 2015 -
Backlash against the South's recent rapid growth in the immigrant population may be contributing to the region's negative response to the president's executive action on immigration. But demographic trends may be fueling a more welcoming environment in the region's cities.

January 30, 2015 -
With income inequality getting renewed attention from the public and policymakers, a new report by the Economic Analysis and Research Network takes a state-by-state look at the problem -- and finds that Southern states are among those where the income gap has grown most dramatically.

January 23, 2015 -
A new report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that the tax systems in all 50 states worsen economic inequality by taxing the wealthy at a lower rate than working families -- and several of the states with the most regressive tax systems are in the South.